Ironworks Cost Estimator (ICE) models equipment employment cost, forecasts resource requirements, and produces equipment charge rates. Its purpose is to enable heavy equipment owners to manage their fleets like a job: with a plan, schedule, and budget for every machine in their fleet.

Equipment Cost Modeling #

ICE machine employment models involve the following components:

• The Estimate Setup sheet is used to specify the rate period, scheduled cost factors, and certain cost calculations rules.

• The Equipment List sheet is used to specify the properties of each machine in the fleet.

• The Custody Plans sheet is used to specify the nature of each machine’s custody and forecast its monthly employment for the rate period.

• The Overhead Estimate is used to specify those costs for the rate period associated with the fleet as a whole and not attributable to any one machine.

• The Employment Cost Factors sheet is used to specify employment cost factor values for each machine for the rate period.

The models are then used to estimate each machine’s forecast monthly monetary cost and resource requirements for the Rate Period based on Ironworks’ copyrighted Heavy Equipment Cost Breakdown Structure.

Then, a Charge Rate for the Rate Period is automatically calculated for each machine in the fleet based on the respective machine’s total monetary cost and forecast employment for the Rate Period.

Then, forecast monthly machine-specific monetary cost and resource requirement quantities are aggregated at the fleet level and charted for fleet management purposes.

The Charge Rates and monthly monetary cost forecasts are then exported to the subscriber’s job cost estimating and equipment cost accounting systems respectively.

To assist in the specification of employment cost factor values, Ironworks de-identifies and deconstructs all models by all users and uploads the resulting cost factor value datapoints to its cloud repository. There the datapoints are sorted by machine make-model-year and statistically characterized for reporting on demand to users while estimating.

Reports #

Machine employment models are reported in the following system components:

• The Machine Employment Cost Estimate sheet calculates and reports in detail by CBS component the monetary cost and resource requirements calculations performed for each machine employment model.

• The Fleet Employment Cost Schedules sheet reports for every machine a monthly cost schedule by CBS Component.

• The Visualization sheets chart monetary costs and resource requirements by the specified rate period, year, and month for any set of machines.

• The Fleet Employment Cost Summary sheet reports for every machine a total estimated cost breakdown and a Charge Rate breakdown for the Rate Period for export to subscribers’ job cost estimating, job cost accounting and equipment cost accounting systems.

• The RXP Charge Rates sheet reports employment-weighted average charge rates for groups of Machine Records defined by the user and enables export of the resulting charge rates to an Excel workbook for loading third-party job cost estimating and job cost accounting systems.

• The RXP Forecast Cost sheet reports forecast costs for groups of Machine Records defined by the user and enables export of the resulting values to an Excel workbook for analysis.